WARNING
Front-5
This is not a ‘recipe book’ of how to plan and conduct a training course for health
workers. Experience has taught us that such a book could easily do more harm than
good. Instead, this is a collection of examples and ideas, of group experiences and
outrageous opinions, of ‘triggers to the imagination’. It is an invitation to adventure
and discovery.
Part of the value and excitement of learning is in finding out ‘how to do it’ for
yourself and with others. It lies in looking at the ways things have been done before,
then improving and adapting them to suit your own circumstances. This sort of open-
ended, creative learning process is as important for instructors of health workers as
for the health workers themselves. After all, finding ways to do things better is the
key to improving health. The instructor can set the example.
To be fully alive and meaningful, a training course cannot be either
prepackaged or ‘replicable’ (able to be copied). It needs to be redesigned not only
for each area and set of conditions where it is taught, but each time it is taught.
A training program, like a person, ceases to be interesting when it ceases to
grow or be unique!
So rather than being a ‘blueprint’ on how to build a training program, this book is
a craftsman’s kit of nuts and bolts and tools. Many of the methods and suggestions
come from our personal experience, which has been mostly in Latin America. So pick
and choose from them critically. Use and adapt what you can, in order to create—and
continually re-create—your own very special, unique, and always-new program. Try
to make planning a continuous learning process for everyone concerned: instructors,
students, and members of the community.
Many of the ideas and suggestions in this book are controversial and will not
apply to all areas. We do not ask anyone simply to accept and use them. Instead,
we ask you to challenge them, adapt them, criticize them—and use only what
makes sense tor the people and needs in your own area.
We ask you to consider—and urge you to
doubt and question—everything we say.